


summer

by hongmunmu



Category: Dragon Age II
Genre: Abuse, Childhood, Mentions of Rape, Non-Chronological, Other, Self-Harm, Slavery, Torture
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2015-03-28
Updated: 2016-01-07
Packaged: 2018-03-19 23:34:43
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Rape/Non-Con, Underage
Chapters: 4
Words: 7,205
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3628422
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/hongmunmu/pseuds/hongmunmu
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>A small story of a Seheron family.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

Ammu bore her first child to the man she served. He was married, not that it mattered. She was old, stale. An arranged marriage, no doubt. He, like so many others of his sort, found an inherent need to place carnal desires above all else.

Still, the arrangement somewhat benefitted Ammu. The highborn Seheron man she served was weak, born into his position, never faced with much competition in their region. Out of guilt, or pity, or perhaps both, he had provided her with her own living quarters away from the rest of the slaves. A small two-room hut where she could stay when she was not carrying out her duties, and where she could house his- no, her child.

Nine months later she had a daughter. Varania. She had not chosen the name.  
Ammu had wanted to name her child after the milk-flower. Galanthus if male, Galantha if female. The snowdrop, the white bulb which sprouts after the hard winter. The sunrise at the end of a cold night. A small gift which indicates the end of suffering.

But she let this thought fade from her mind in the next few years that came, and instead focused her energy on Varania. Her snowdrop. Her small blessing.  
When she was an infant, Varania's skin was the colour of honey, her hair fine and thin like her father's, chestnut-red. A warm girl. Ammu was met with both joy and bitterness from her fellow slaves. Smiles of the older washerwomen, who pinched Varania's small bulging cheeks and beamed down into the confused baby's eyes. And, on the way back to her small hut, she would hear the hisses of _whore_ and _broodmare_ behind her back. Ammu let neither the smiles nor the hisses touch her. She had skin of stone.

Varania was clever. Too clever. Never did a naive word come from her honey-child's mouth. Varania accepted every task that was given to her. She complained not, wanted not. Ammu unleashed her soul on the child. It was as though Varania had stemmed from so little love that Ammu was determined to give it back to her. Each night as she held her young daughter close, on their small, shared mattress, stroking her cedarwood hair, she told stories in a low voice. She recited the tale of the Maker and Andraste to her daughter over several nights, and when the story was finished, Varania requested to hear it again. Ammu would laugh, and hold her daughter close like a secret, a wish. _Tomorrow, girl,_ she would whisper. Varania's few-toothed smile was like Ammu's second heart. 

Ammu watched her daughter playfight with the other slaves from her small hatched window. Her daughter pretended to be a mage, pretended to summon a rain of fire, a happy glint in her eye as her friends squealed in mock-terror. She saw as her daughter announced to her friends that she was Andraste. She saw her daughter's friends exchange worried looks before gradually dispersing from Varania's make-believe.

It was here Ammu realised that she would perhaps never meet her daughter for who she truly was, and perhaps she didn't deserve to. From this moment forth, she ceased her Andrastian night-time stories, and only prayed when she was sure her daughter was asleep.

A free man came to work as a gardener for the magister's household in the spring of Varania's sixth year. He was Rivaini, Ammu believed, but had evidently been in Tevinter for a good portion of his life. His Tevene wasn't accented in the slightest. He produced words effortlessly, like pouring water. Like beams of sun splitting from behind the clouds. His skin, hair, and eyes were darker than the damp soil he tended with so much care. As she walked the gardens one day with Varania, he called her, gloved hands wiping sweat off his glowing face, radiating warmth from the merciless Seheron daylight. 

This was a man she had loved.

Ammu found herself with child once again that summer.

Disgusted, her master had him executed. Slaves may give themselves to no one but their master, he spat, unless they have permission otherwise. The southerner paid with his life. 

Ammu's first happiness came to an end. It wasn't until much later, long after the death of her earth-soaked lover, after the nine months of labouring that came to the birth of her son, that she discovered she could have a second.

Her master was a weak man. Weak men do not fight the law. Her son was born to a free man. Thus, her son was free. He was free. He was hers. 

She could choose his _name_.

 _Leto,_ she asserted. Leto, the summer. Leto the sun god. 

Though at first she worried as to what would become of her son - her free son - it seemed the Maker had smiled upon her. 

"He will be permitted to stay here, with you and little Varania," the master had mused. "As long as you resume your... hard work as before." 

Ammu wept at his feet in thanks.

The rapes continued, but Ammu no longer cared. Her skin was stone. Her son was free.

 

* * *

 

 

"It will be better this way," Leto asserted. His common tongue was still broken, like he had to push out each word individually, rather than as a collective. Ammu had banned the use of Tevene while their small family remained in its own company; she had heard a rumour from one of the washerwomen that Magister Danarius preferred common tongue. Varania no longer spoke more than necessary among them.

Ammu was resigned to it, now. Her son was stubborn, a mule. Too young, innocent perhaps, to be called proud; no, it was the foolish sense of honour that all little boys seemed to carry, like a wooden sword and a shield of cloth, held up in front of their small bodies unwavering, full of every belief that it will keep them safe. She had seen too many little boys die. 

But there was no longer a point in arguing. The magister had chosen. Coins had been exchanged.

Varania still said nothing. Her eyes downcast, her lips a straight line, she peeled one apple after the next, red, green, red, green. The apple peels she normally saved for Leto, she ignored tonight, scraping them away into a dirt pile. A sixteen-year-old girl with the hands of a withered, elderly cook. Her honey skin had lightened for she hardly ever saw the sun.

"This could never make it better," Ammu murmured. "I have worked that you can stay free. As does your sister."

Silently, at this moment, Ammu wondered if Varania felt cheated. How her mother could bear a daughter to their master, and a son with a free man? Older children are always treated like mistakes. Things not to repeat. Varania was nothing. Leto was summer. Six years apart.

"It is more difficult, for the women in slavery," Leto insisted, Tevinter accent thick over the foreign words of common tongue. "Like this, you are both free, and I am strong enough to fight anything Master wishes me to. I will have power, and you will be free." 

Leto was like a small sun. He gave off some pure, radiating force of self-belief. He believed every word he said. His watery green eyes were wide, and in the late sun that shone through their small window they glistened like dew on new leaves. Two spring leaves amidst a dark and damp soil, his speckled brown skin, from so many long days spent playing in the sun, his father's skin. Sun-spotted, sun-kissed.

Varania spent cruel hours working in those kitchens. Her hands cold, blistered. Pale as the crisp, cream-white flesh of the apples she peeled so determinedly, so expertly. Practiced. Her task.

Ammu wanted to believe what Leto told her. She wanted to believe that as a boy, Leto would be safe. Safer. Strong enough to hold the tattoos, strong enough to hold a sword, and nothing else.

But she had heard rumours of Magister Danarius. She had met the man in the market, as he prowled Seheron, prowled the whole Imperium, looking for any male child strong enough for his purpose. She knew better. It made her sick.

The world was so much more cruel than her lionhearted son could guess.   
But it was too late, now. Nothing could be done. 

She could only pray to Andraste that her son would die during the tournament.

One hand on her slightly bulging stomach, Ammu stood on her tired, work-worn legs, and pushed the dark curls back off Leto's face. She pressed a gentle kiss to his forehead.

"Good night, sun." 

He smiled his rabbit's smile as she pulled away, cheeks dimpled, wiping away the 'kiss' from his forehead with a tiny clenched fist. 

"Good night, little mother."

Leto grinned at her as he said it. He had not regrown all his teeth yet, two gaping holes in his smile. Ammu felt her heart break.

She placed a kiss on Varania's stony cheek, before leaving their small kitchen and retreating to the even-smaller bedroom. Rather, a cupboard with a straw mattress quilting the floor, and a few threadbare blankets strewn upon it. She knelt. 

Ammu prayed to Andraste. She prayed for her unborn child. She prayed her son would meet death swiftly and kindly in Minrathous. She prayed she and her daughter would remain slaves under the man who tolerated them, his unwilling, secret second family. She prayed Leto's soul would return to the Maker, his body to the earth. His body, speckled brown and green and amber, like his father’s. Like a forest in the monsoon season, flecked with spots of the late Seheron sunbeams.

And she cried. _A mother's tears can move mountains,_ her own mother had told her. 

Ammu's tears moved no mountains. Ammu's tears burned no Minrathous ships. Ammu's tears smited no magisters by the name of Danarius.

She wept silver tears into the long deep lines that slashed across her two brown palms. She wept in Tevene and not the common tongue. Ammu wept for the two beautiful children she had bequeathed unto this merciless world, and for the third that had yet to enter it.


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> i wasn't planning on writing more of this, but some new scenes came to me while i was walking. unfortunately as the new databook has come out and it has new information on leto, not everything in this fic is accurate, a lot is headcanon, for example leto being free before danarius, or seheron having highborns and such. i hope you enjoy regardless. i may just update when i have new ideas, i'm not telling this story chronologically.

If Ammu could have had one wish, it would have been Ignorance. Ammu wanted to be ignorant of what was going to happen to her son. What was going to be done to her son. She wanted to be ignorant of what would happen to her and Varania. Of how long she had left. Of what Varania would do on her own.

“You’re a slave, now. Slave like mother and like sister.”

Leto could only beam. His mouth a crescent moon.

“Not like mother. Not like Varania. Mother and Varania are free.”

Ammu’s face crinkled like paper that had once been soaking wet but dried since. Leto’s eyes just crinkled.

“Slave. Ser-Vus.”

“Sun-son. Sun-son!”

He was bouncing on his little box-seat, Too Excited and Too Happy and he would never be a good slave. He would die or he would be beaten out of himself. Like an egg, split with the yolk and the white poured out, and the shell sewed back together again. But the insides gone. This was her sun-son’s fate. Bashed in or peeled away, flayed and thrown to the dogs.

“Get out,” Varania said, quietly, from her place at the counter. Her hands were stained with vinegar-smell. Geh-tawt. Leto repeated the words to himself as he left the kitchens obediently, carefully gathering up the smashed bits of egg-shell left on the floor by the fat cook as he went. He sprinkled the crushed egg shells into the flowerbeds outside. Geh- he took a pinch of the shells – tawt. He threw the sharp pieces into the soft damp soil, and patted the flowers when he was done.

Varania looked at her mother, the corners of her eyes and mouth pinched up, like a smile only she wasn’t happy in the slightest.

“Maybe he won’t be so bad at obeying orders after all,” she said, her voice bitter as the vegetables she was preserving.

* * *

 

“You! Rabbit!”

Leto turned to see the cook pointing a finger at him. He gazed questioningly at her in wonder, how her skin was even paler than his sister’s, how her armfat jiggled from side to side when she moved to point at him.

“What are you doing, standing around, ah?” She then said something in common tongue that Leto hadn’t learned. Her face was in a very tight frown, like a drawstring leather bag when it’s closed. “Go, make yourself useful. Get garum from the cupboard.”

Leto felt a little out of his depth, but nodded wide-eyed and left to find the cubbard. He had to ask another slave before he got anywhere, a small elven girl who was carrying wine. She pointed him to it and he smiled like a moon at her.

A woman in blue was crying in the cubbard. She looked a little cramped – after all, the room was made for elves and jars, not for ladies and tears. She was crouched on the floor, the edge of one of the lower wooden shelves digging into her back and leaving a grey dust-stripe on her bluebell dress. Briefly, Leto wondered if she came because she was cold - because _he_ thought the house was cold, and the slave quarters were warmer than anywhere else because of the fires, and because they were at the bottom of the house. Leto knew the bottom of the house was warmer than the top of the house because Mother had told him. Because the ground is where the warmth comes from, she says. Because the middle of earth is warm and the warm goes up and up and the higher you go, the less warm it is. Until you reach the sun. She said: the place exactly in the middle between the ground and the sun is the coldest that it gets. From there it just gets warmer no matter which way you go.

“Why do you cry?” he asked, garum forgotten.

The woman looked up. Her face was streaky and red and upset, but it was still pretty. She had very Very black Black hair, like Leto’s but less of a Soil-Black and more of an Ash-Black. And Leto’s skin was like more soil, and her skin was like a creamy white candle stick. With the wax dripping like tears. A crying candle.

She breathed in, doing a little shiver-shake while she did so, and stood up to her full height, sniffing, her ash-black head nearly touching the ceiling. She should not have sniffed, because there was dust on the jars and the edges of shelves and she sneezed. Leto giggled and she slapped him across the face. It wasn’t a wet slap but it was close to one, wet like the salt on her reddened-candle-cheeks, and slap like the fish Mother would drop onto the board. Before she started to Cut Off Their Head And Gut Them And Take Out The Bones So Master Won’t Choke And Cut Off My Head And Gut Me And Take Out My Bones.

Leto didn’t want to end up like those fish.

Miss Bluebell Dust was still crying but she was sad and angry now. Ammu had angry-cried once, so Leto knew. Ammu had also slapped him but Miss Bluebell Dust wasn’t Mother.

He lifted a brown hand to his stinging fish-cheek and looked up at her. She was shuddering. She took him by the neck and pushed him against one of the walls, only there was a shelf of jars in the way, so she pushed him against that instead. Leto felt the grey dust stripe on his neck. She took a jar of garum and smashed it over his head. The glass cut his forehead and his scalp, and now he was the one dripping like a candle. The sauce inside smashed with the jar and it went onto Leto’s head too. He flinched, and smelled fish. Garum on his head and on the floor, not in the jar where it should be. His cheek and his temple were numb and like fish.

“You’ll address me as Mistress Hadriana. Stupid…slave.” Mistress Hadriana said more things after stupid and before slave, but Leto didn’t know those common words either. He started to think that he hadn’t been very well prepared. He felt very small. Like a whitebait with a tiger. Mistress Hadriana had claws and they were on his neck and on pieces of the smashed glass garum jar. There was garum and bleeding cuts on her hand, too. Leto wondered why she was hurting the both of them together.

It wasn’t because of the cold.

Mistress Hadriana sneered at him like she had just recognised someone she hated from her childhood.

“I know you,” she hissed. “You’re that one Danarius brought. For the ritual.”

Leto wanted to close his eyes because she had become a fire which was too bright to look at. She gave him a strange look, once she was done talking. Like she was sad and angry and happy at the same time. The corners of her eyes and mouth were pinched upwards but it wasn’t a real smile.

Mistress Hadriana let out another strange, shaking breath, stepping back. With her clean hand, she wiped away the wax on her face. And she walked away quickly, out the cubbard and down the hall and up the winding stairs that signaled the end of Slave Quarters, her shoes clacking on the stone floor.

Leto decided he didn’t want to eat fish anymore.

He took a Not Smashed jar of garum, and took it to the cook lest she Cut Off His Head And Gut Him And Take Out His Bones.

* * *

 

Varania had seen her brother before he was born. In a dream. A dream while she slept, her hands on her mother’s swollen abdomen. She had seen him in his father, in the Southerner-Rivaini-Tevinter-Gardener. Is Gardener a place? She had asked her Mother, and her Mother had just laughed and held her close. Leto’s father had two parents and one was Southerner-Rivaini, and one was Tevinter-Gardener. That was Varania’s theory.

In the night she had her six-year-old hands on her mother’s eight-month-old belly. On her eight-month-old-little-brother-to-be. Varania’s hands were a lighter shade of brown than Ammu’s middle. She wondered if the baby beneath Ammu’s middle was a darker shade of brown. She thought about him, curled up to her sleeping mother’s side, tried to picture playing with a little boy. A little earth-brown Southerner-Rivaini-Tevinter-Gardener boy.

It never really occurred to Varania why she had assumed she was going to have a little brother. Ammu had never told her. Southerner-Rivaini-Tevinter-Gardener had never told her. There was no way to find out. She just knew. Like a good sister should.

Varania closed her eyes and dreamed of the summer.

When Leto was born, Varania was disappointed. She had expected a brother who came out kicking and laughing and fully-formed like a blossomed flower who was ready to play with her in the garden. If not for that why had he spent so long making Mother suffer? He was barely more than a seed. A little brown sunflower seed who couldn’t do anything. Varania was unimpressed.

But she waited. She tried to forget that Leto was there for the time being; that he was still inside Ammu’s swollen earth-belly and would stay there until he was a Proper Little Brother. But try as she might she could not ignore the way Ammu didn’t curl her fingers into Varania’s hair anymore. Varania curled into Mother’s side, and Mother curled into the baby. Away from her. Mother was lighter than the baby but darker than Varania. A middle layer.

She had loved Leto’s father. She hadn’t wanted Varania.

From the day she realised this onward, Varania had a little less love to give.

* * *

 

You are Fenris, my wolf.

Who was Fenris? Who was Leto? It remembered it’s mother’s embrace. It remembered apples on a chopping board. A fish-slap.

It stayed very still. Like if it didn’t move, the pain wouldn’t see it, and wouldn’t come for it.

It opened something – eyes - and saw something else. Man. Person. Magic. Very slowly things came back to it, like sand in an hourglass. Words leaked back into it. Him. Person. An hourglass is not a person, an hourglass counts.

The man was smiling. Smiling meant happy, happy meant good. It- he- frowned, like he was fitting one thing into another. Frowning hurt and he stopped.

“Do you remember anything?” The man asked. Hearing anything felt very strange, and hearing words felt even stranger. They seemed cloudy, obscured. He searched his mind for something to compare the feeling to, but found nothing. It was all obscure. Like dust on a clear glass jar.

“N- n-,” He replied, with difficulty. He’d made two short sounds, and found he couldn’t extend them into anything else. He didn’t really understand what he’d said, but it was what came instinctively rolling off his tongue. The man was still smiling but it was a little stern, one eyebrow raised, in dry amusement. The man crouched down besides him. He realised he was on some sort of platform. Bed. Raised, above the ground. It felt strange and not-right. The opposite of right. Left. Left was the opposite of right.

“You are Fenris,” the man said. “You are a slave. I am a person, Danarius, your master, owner and creator.  Do you understand?”

You-are-Fenris. Fen-riss. Fenris said it, or tried to, in an attempt to get used to moving his mouth. It felt quite rough at the sides, like it had been stretched very wide-open for a long time. The things under his mouth felt sore. Muscle. Jaw. Maw. Mouth words.

Once he had tackled his name he focused his attention on A Person, Danarius, Master, Owner and Creator. He tried to differentiate between the last three. It was hard and only one thing came to mind.

“M- m- may-” he tried, tentatively. “Maker.” He decided he liked talking. First pressing lips together, and then a watery open sound with the tongue and teeth, and then akuh, a cut at the end, like a head coming off a fish cleanly to signify the end of what you eat and the start of what you throw away. Maker. May-kuh.

Master, Owner and Creator A Person Danarius hit him. A slap. Slap made a clapping sound, and Fenris felt pleased in spite of himself and in spite of the pain that held into his body like tiger fangs or claws. He could smell fish.

“Not Maker,” Danarius spat. “There is no Maker. Only Master. Do you understand? Nod if you do.”

Fenris nodded. There was no Maker. Maker was bad and Maker would get him a Slap. He wouldn’t say it again. Master’s face softened. He stood, straightening up.

“Can you move?” he asked. Fenris tried to straighten up like his Master. Pain felt like he was trying to do something and something else was trying to stop him at the same time. It didn’t seem right, like the Pain shouldn’t be there if it was something he should be doing, so he stopped, flopping back onto the bed. Master sighed and turned, walking away to the hole in the wall. Another person was there, a woman in blue. Fenris felt like he shouldn’t be looking at them now so he tried to look elsewhere. He saw:

  * One doorframe (the hole in the wall was a door)
  * One doorframe without a door in the middle and chains attached to the sides
  * Floor without a pile of black curly hair on it
  * Floor with a pile of black curly hair on it
  * Blood



Momentarily he wondered why there was hair on the floor, for Master Danarius and the woman in blue both had hair and neither was on the floor. Fenris briefly considered if he should have hair too but then he remembered that he was a Slave and not A Person so therefore it would make sense that persons had hair and Slaves did not.

This knowledge seemed to tire him somehow. This and the past few minutes in which he had experienced (or without his knowledge, Re-Experienced) The World. The World, to Fenris so far, was a small stone room with blood and hair and two door frames, one with a door and one without (would that make it just a frame, and not a doorframe? He wondered) and Master Owner Creator A Person Danarius and woman in blue behind the doorframe. This was his World for now and he was satisfied. Pain welcomed him back and he let his eyes close like he didn’t control them, which he didn’t, because they weren’t his. Master’s Fenris’s eyelids closed. Master’s Fenris succumbed to sleep.


	3. Chapter 3

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> slightly further down the line - warnings for the following: sleep deprivation torture, self harm/blood magic, animal torture, non descriptive rape, general abuse  
> in case it's unclear from the way i've written this chapter, i have no sympathy for hadriana

On holy days, though neither the magister nor his apprentice had ever indicated themselves to be religious, they – like the rest of the Imperium – ceased all work-related activities. Danarius would primarily attend to social matters and public appearances, usually leaving Fenris to delegate to Hadriana.

As such, holy days became days for Fenris to dread.

He wondered – whether on purpose or accidentally – had Danarius raised him specifically to negatively view religion? In his earliest memories – such days seemed so very far gone now – though he could not remember details, distinct associations of pain and fear spread through his blood at any mention of the Maker.

Fenris realised his thoughts had drawn him to look at Hadriana, and quickly caught himself – but too late.

“Animal,” she drawled from the recliner, a half-eaten peeled apple in hand. She was looking at him with an odd expression. Fenris did not reply, simply straightened his shoulders and fixed his gaze intently on a small crack in one of the floor tiles.

Fenris did not know how old he was, exactly, but by his own judgement, information relayed through his master and general observations, he had estimated it to have been approximately five or six years since he had come into existence. He also reasoned, judging by how attitudes toward him from other slaves had changed from pity and discomfort to jealousy and fear, that he was an adult now. As such, he no longer offered Hadriana the satisfaction of his torment, at least when he had the choice.

There were times when he was not so lucky.

Hadriana’s actions and moods, after enduring them for several years, were very predictable. When she was insulted, offended, or sad, she lashed out. Of course, since what she could say around Danarius and the other magisters present – who were, often, the source of her upset – was limited, she usually resorted to bottling up her rage to unleash upon the nearest slaves or servants as soon as she was in private. Since acting as Hadriana’s personal attendant held no rewards and much abuse, it was not a coveted position. Fenris was neither Hadriana’s slave nor household property – so truly, she had no right to claim ownership of him – but since Danarius rarely protested unless she had damaged him to the point he could no longer serve his duties as a bodyguard, Fenris had largely had to resort to his own coping mechanisms.

In this case, averting his gaze and hoping nothing would trigger her to take further action. On days where she could not work, train or socialise, tormenting Fenris was one of her favored hobbies.

Truly, at times, he could even see why. When one spent so much time idly standing and observing, not permitted to leave or partake in any sort of escapism, he gleaned a great deal of insight into those around him. Hadriana got a high off the thrill of being the one in charge, of having control of the situation. In rooms full of elderly magisters where she was the only woman and only apprentice present, she too put up with great deals of humiliation. Though he could not bring himself to feel a smidgeon of pity for her.

It was not his duty to feel, after all, only to obey. He felt no guilt in enjoying her pain when she made his own into a sport.

 

* * *

 

Fenris was around twelve when Danarius had bought him, Hadriana had gleaned off gossip between slaves, which would make him eighteen now.

Hadriana had various hobbies that she had never trusted Danarius enough to tell him of. Danarius was much like a father to her, and, like a father, he often had a tendency of breaking promises. The last time she had seen him was in the dining room, where she had been told to retire to bed while the men – the _real_ magisters – left to the drawing room. Graciously she accepted, bidding them goodnight well-manneredly, closing the doors while the gentlemen occupied themselves with fat cigars – _real lyrium traces, delivered directly from Orzammar_ – and some putrid wine and the latest Developments On The Project of whatever political nonsense they had taken upon themselves now. Fenris knelt by Danarius’ chair, head bowed, unresponsive as a magister made some inappropriate comment regarding him. He rose at Danarius’ order to fetch more wine, and made his way toward the door – Hadriana dashed away from the crack of light she had been pressing her eyes to, breathing fast, and pinned herself against the wall. Fenris noticed her as he exited the well-lit room, closing the double-doors and stepping into the dimly moonlit corridor, but paid her no heed. After one glance he was gone in the direction of the cellar. Hadriana sighed quietly, leaning her head back against the wall. From the drawing room, a burst of male laughter sounded. This was followed by another mirthful comment featuring her name before further laughter, and Hadriana decided she needed to hear no more. She made her way up the stairs two at a time, strode into her quarters, and slammed the door behind her. She felt no concern for the slave girl she had passed in the hall whose hair had spontaneously caught fire.

She sat gracefully on her bed, attempting to breathe slower than she was naturally. She reached for the fine mage’s knife made of bone that lay on her dresser, and brought it slowly across her wrist three times, counting her breaths, one-two-three-in, one-two-three-out, one-two-three-four-in, one-two-three-four-out. Covering her other hand across the small cuts she had made, she drew upon the exposed vein of mana, and began to focus her attention on torturing a rat that had made a home for itself in a crack in her wall.

 

* * *

 

Fenris had lost count of how many days had passed. He had given up on paying attention or effort to anything other than staying awake. As it was, he could barely keep himself upright. He

-

-    -

-    -    -

A jolt of electricity hit him between his shoulder blades, and what immediately followed was an intense burning sensation that fanned out from the point on his back down to his legs and through his spine to his ribs. Senses of control and reason all but forgotten he let out a groan of pain and frustration; and immediately after braced himself for the next impact, which came sure enough, another slightly smaller bolt of magically charged lightning that burned his shoulder.

“I’m sorry,” he slurred, trying to straighten his head up with his palm, catching himself against the wall, “I’m sorry.”

Hadriana gave no response, and Fenris was not coherent enough to see or interpret her facial expression. He gave in, sense of self-preservation now lost, and let his knees buckle beneath him, falling to kneel at her feet.

“Please,” he moaned. “Please.”

  
“Please what?” came the shrill voice from above him. He wanted to sob at the sound. Perhaps he did, he could no longer distinguish what he did and what he imagined.

_Please kill me._

“Please let me sleep.”

The exhaustion had felt like hunger at first but now it felt like a weight, as though his head was being pushed down, and was eating away at the rest of his body. He briefly wondered if this was what it felt like to be a corpse on the receiving end of necromancy.

Hadriana considered it, her face thoughtful. She gave him a concerned look.

“You really want to?”  
“Yes. Please. Mistress – “

“No, worm.” This was followed by a snort of laughter. Fenris’ shoulders slumped as he wondered exactly how he could have fallen for that. _It’s because you haven’t slept for a fortnight,_ something inside him said, but he ignored it.

Two more days passed. He remembered nothing. Every moment of staying alive, staying conscious, was agony. When he could physically no longer function Hadriana would hex him with a horror charm for an hour or so before waking him up again. Of course, he could not tell what was a horror-induced dream, and what was really happening.

“It’s inconvenient,” came a voice from somewhere very far away, “he’s not performing properly anymore. End your silly game and be done with it, foolish girl.”

As he was raped that night Hadriana stood present, her face distorted like that of a demon. Fenris had no idea who was above him; the face was a blur. He was not certain it was even human. He was immune to fear now. His mind and body were a blur and he no longer felt anything but aching, cracked pain. He became painfully aware that he was lying in a pool of his own vomit.

As it pulled out Fenris finally was permitted to lose consciousness and he fell into nightmares like they were a loving mother.

 

* * *

 

Some days, Hadriana would disguise herself and hide in the slave quarters. Of those who saw her, slaves who didn’t recognise her paid her no attention, and those who did pretended they hadn’t seen her at all.

She would sit and listen, rocking back and forth gently, on some steps around a corner, or in a dusty storage cupboard, or behind a salted ram strung from the ceiling. She found it therapeutic – sometimes it annoyed her, but she did it regardless.

“Did you hear what happened to Malina the other night - ?”

“The mess – the _mess_ – ”

“Yes – completely bald now, and the _burns-_ ”

“A whore just like his mother.”

“The apple never falls far from the tree…”

“Yes – you think so?”

“Don’t you?”

“More honey, stupid girl, it’s a sweet dish. Use those big ears of yours.”

“He _definitely_ enjoys it. You’ve seen the way he struts around like he owns the place – too good for _us_ , of course – ”

“Twenty years, I’ve served this house…”

“You _saw_ who did it! You were there!”

“Master’s favourite, my _foot_ – “

“Very unstable – “  
“Hush – don’t you know what they say about her – “

She closed her eyes and dozed in the warm stillness and chatter of the underground rooms.

 

* * *

 

“Did Dominus ever tell you if the Maker was real?” asked the girl. Fenris shook his head.

“He’s not.”


	4. Chapter 4

This was her brother. She knew it the second he came through the door. The minute they made eye contact, she felt a tight pain, a soreness in her heart. This wasn’t what she wanted, and she knew then, perhaps she’d known all along, it wouldn’t end well.

“Varania?”

How strange, to hear his voice broken. Varania looked him over once.

Physically, he looked tired, older than he was. His hair had turned grey and the shadows under his eyes were deep and dark, even moreso than hers. But in that exact moment he said her name, his eyes were wide and forest-green, and his face was the same as the child’s she had said goodbye to on the docks twenty-five years ago.

“It really is you.” She avoided eye contact. She didn’t want to look at him.

Varania watched with a heavy heart as Danarius descended the stairs and Leto forgot her for the time being. The magister made a comment regarding her brother to one of his companions, and she looked away. She didn’t want to hear it. She didn’t want to know.

Varania didn’t care about the man in front of her. She did, once, and he had cared about her, but it had been decades. He didn’t remember her. She didn’t remember him.

And while she had known Danarius’s promise was less of a bribe than a thinly-veiled threat, she hadn’t succumbed out of fear. She wanted power. She _wanted_ what he offered, to be a magister.

She knew he would stop at nothing to get Leto back. It was tangible. Danarius reeked of desire and of greed. If she had turned down his offer she would have indisputably been tortured into confession and killed, and Varania wasn’t prepared for that. She was strong. Iron. Steel.

And she had suffered too much.

From the corner she glanced once more at the savage battle happening a few yards away. Leto shouted at the magister, stubborn like he always had been. _I’m not a slave! You’ll die here!_ It was all the same.

Varania missed slavery. She missed her hut and the cooks, the constant warmth of the kitchens and the girl she had slept with when no one was looking for them. She missed the apple peels.

Instead the choice of a ten-year-old boy had pushed her into selling herself, and working her hands raw on needles and spindles and looms, stretched herself so thin for all she had to protect. Her mother had given birth to her second little brother and Varania had taken that baby, eyes closed, covered in blood, and drowned it like a cat in the shallows of the Nocen Sea. Another mouth to feed, another starving crying elven child with nothing to live for. The world didn’t need any more of it.

Looking at Leto now, perhaps soon she would have the blood of both her siblings on her hands.

Her mother had died of a disease she contracted while working at a whorehouse. Freedom had been slavery but without a home.

Danarius was a disgusting man who had done disgusting things, and Varania knew that. But she had to live. She’d already sacrificed too much to that cause. Her dignity, her body, her family. Varania had nothing left to cling to but her magic and her life. And that was all she needed.

* * *

“You _fiend!_ ” A blow to the head. “You miserable, stinking, self-righteous little rabbit son of a whore-”

“ _Hadriana!_ ”

She looked up immediately. Danarius was descending the stairs, face tempestuous. She let go of Fenris’s hair, hands immediately twisting behind her back.

“He backtalked me, messere-”

“Then you keep his punishment where it can’t be seen. Or have you forgotten the ball tonight? Stupid girl.”

She hung her head. “I apologise. I’ll heal it.”

Danarius spared her one more withering glance before turning on his heel and heading down the next flight of stairs, no doubt to tend to the celebrations. Once the magister was out of earshot she turned on Fenris, who was still kneeling on the carpet, hand to his bleeding face. She slapped it out the way and began knitting the skin back together so as to avoid scarring.

“I bet you’re so pleased, aren’t you, you little rat,” she hissed, gripping his jaw tighter. Fenris just stared at her, emotionless, not breaking eye contact so as to make her uncomfortable. She clenched her teeth, trying not to hit him again. “Well, you won’t be so smug tonight, will you? He’s only making me heal you because he wants you to be pretty, stupid.”

Fenris apparently didn’t let the jibe affect him. He kept eye contact. “Thank you for healing me, mistress, you’re so kind,” he said saccharinely. Hadriana wanted to scream. She tried again.

“I wonder how it feels to only be wanted as a whore and a shield,” she asked coolly. “That’s all you do, isn’t it? Take blades for him?”

“I wonder how it would feel to not be wanted by anyone at all,” Fenris said. Hadriana kicked him hard in the stomach, and the force knocked him onto his back. She drove her heel into his stomach.

“You’re going to wish you’d never been born,” she whispered. With a last drive of her heeled shoe she stepped back and away from him. “If I were you, I’d sleep well tonight. You insolent little _shit._ ” She stared at him for a moment before turning on her heel and powering through the mansion to her quarters. Her face felt very hot.

The insolence. The sheer insolence. It _outraged_ her. It bred a knot of flaming hatred in the pit of her stomach and she was _powerless_ to respond. How _dare_ Danarius forbid her from punishing him when he was so – _ugh._

She knew her jibes hurt him, but if they didn’t elicit a reaction there was no point. Perhaps that was his game. She didn’t care. She just wanted to make him regret every minute he had spent thinking badly of her. She would start with him and then the world.  

* * *

He screamed. Of course he did. There had been weeks of training, weeks of pain exercises and meditation and steeling and he was brave. He was brave, brave, brave, brave, brave through every cut and line. But there was nothing quite like the lyrium’s touch. It was to be poured into him like the mold for a blade. He was both the mold and the hilt, and he would hold the blade perfectly, he was sure, just once he stopped screaming. Brave – be brave, Leto, said his mother. He knew he was a big boy now and shouldn’t need to be coddled but strangely, just that once, he wished his mother could be there to hold his hand.

And then the bright blue touched him and the world fell apart. Shattering in pieces and in veins. Fragments of everything he knew broke and joined like so much broken glass, and they combined in difficult and in unhappy ways. His mother in a bluebell dress. His sister peeling a jar of garum with her tired washerwoman hands. Tevene and Trade and Qunlat. A white man’s old face, wrinkled hands clapping in a crowd as he killed another boy, and another. There was a woman and a honey girl. He didn’t know their names. He lost concept. He lost understanding. His construct as a person came apart block by block. Procedural memory. Memory. Forgot. Forget. Gone.

* * *

“Leto-”

“Stop _calling me that!_ ”

But Varania couldn’t. It was the only way she could still acknowledge her mother.

“Get out.”

Varania almost smiled. _Geh-tawt._ He didn’t have the accent anymore.

She looked at him, one last time. Truthfully, Leto had always looked more like his father than her mother.

Varania walked through the door. She would start again. _Again, again, again._

* * *

“No one loves you like I do, Fenris. Nothing could. You understand that, yes?”

“Yes, master.”

Two hands in his hair, and one clenching his heart. There was so little of him left to violate.

It hurt more than it should.


End file.
